means A raised platform or enclosed stand, typically in a church, from which a preacher delivers a sermon.

from From Latin 'pulpitum,' meaning a stage or scaffold — the raised platform where Roman actors and orators performed. The word stepped down from the theater into the church, where it became the elevated stand for the one whose voice carried over the congregation. The same Latin root gives us 'pulpitum' in the sense of a stage front, so the preacher and the actor were always, etymologically, working the same boards.